Buffalo MiniStation Lite 320GB

Full Review

Our review piece of the MiniStation Lite 320 GB was quite a beauty. Black, a glossy smooth finish, an unobtrusive blue activity LED and a design that makes it feel slimmer than it actually is, make sure that this drive isn’t found wanting on the looks. It would make for the perfect “executive” drive... just as long as you clean it with a cloth every time you touch it, since the surface is too easy to spoil with fingerprints. It performed well in our tests, but unfortunately its availability isn’t very widespread. As with all the other external drives, the Buffalo MiniStation Lite also packs in a software bundle for file sync and more. This includes applications for enabling low power consumption, Turbo USB, a Mobile Launcher, and even a Mac version of Turbo USB. No external power adapters needed of course, its USB cable alone supplies enough power. As with all other portables it does get fairly warm to the touch after prolonged usage (three hours).

It would make for the perfect "executive" drive... just as long as you clean it with a cloth every time you touch it, since the surface is too easy to spoil with fingerprints.

In synthetic benchmarks, it gave a read speed average of 31 MB/s and write speed average of 30.6 MB/s. The read access time averaged 17.65 ms. On the PCmark HDD test suite, this drive scored 3307 (which is about 300 points higher than the drive that scored the lowest). These numbers mean that the drive performs well in its category, though internal desktop 3.5-inch hard drives will still be faster. Real-world write tests consisted of copying a number of small files (1.81 GB, 31 files of varying sizes), and one single large file (over 2 GB in size), from a fast desktop hard drive to the portable drive under testing. Speeds here averaged 24 MB/s and 31 MB/s respectively. Real-world read speed (copying multiple files from portable drive to desktop HDD) stood at 31 MB/s. If you can find this drive at a store in your city (because it isn't very widely available), it wouldn't be a bad buy at all. Buffalo Technologies offers a warranty of five years on this product (a longer warranty indicates a higher level of confidence).

Bottom Line

Looks great, available in three colors, but the glossy casing is particularly prone to fingerprints and scratches. Performance-wise, it is one of the best but this drive and all the others are sorely limited by the USB 2.0 speed limit.